To Absent Clients

Recently I was scrolling through Yahoo Finance! and came across a video interview with the owner of the legendary Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, the century old training and battle ground for both amateur and professional boxers. The past and present champions who have trained there over the years would nearly fill the New York City white pages.

In any event, Gleason’s, like thousands of other fitness facilities in New York, had been shuttered since March. Therefore, no member dues were coming in and the owner had a balloon tax payment due that he admittedly could not make. He pleaded on camera with the powers that be in Albany to allow him to reopen.

Next week, thankfully, gyms across New York will be allowed to remove the padlocks from their doors – albeit under strict COVID-19 rules – such as limited capacity, no shower facilities, and mandatory masks etc.

But I got to thinking.

Five months without any cash-flow would place a tremendous strain on a large corporate owned facility, let alone the thousands of small gym or mom-and-pop business owners across New York as well as other states.

Ditto for restaurants. I read recently where two upscale establishments in the expansive and Hudson Yards development on the west side of Manhattan were closing shop for good – barely a year after they opened.

How many times do you suppose that scenario will be repeated before year end? On a personal level two family owned restaurants and a barber shop in my area have placed the proverbial soap on the windows. The signs on the front door explain that they are closed “for renovations” but as most of you know that’s code for “we’re outta business.”

If your CPA practice serviced clients in those sectors, how many would be left standing at the end? That would unquestionably ignite a severe trickle-down effect, as accounting practices are usually among the last to feel the impact of a downturn.

For those who follow the accounting trade press and profession-centric webinars the majority of articles and presentations project the quantum changes that are sure to reshape the industry as we know it – whether by exponentially increasing their remote workforce as a result of being sequestered by the pandemic, a major loss of clients or firms morphing into more of a consulting entity as opposed to a firm that provides basic compliance services.

Either way change is coming.

And there is no known mask or vaccine that can prevent that.